Rich Obama supporters start realize that he’s talking about *them*.

Wealthy Wall Street financiers and other business figures provided crucial support for Mr Obama during the election, backing him over the Republican candidate John McCain as the right leader to rescue the collapsing US economy.

But it is now dawning on many among them that Mr Obama was serious about his campaign trail promises to bring root and branch reform to corporate America – and that they were more than just election rhetoric.

A top Obama fundraiser and hedge fund manager said: “I’m appalled at the anti-Wall Street rhetoric. It was OK on the campaign but now it’s the real world. I’m surprised that Obama is turning out to be so left-wing. He’s a real class warrior.”

It’s a powerful temptation; worse and worse, it’s a justified one. You knew and I knew that this was going to happen. You knew and I knew that the upper classes were going to be subject to the Democrats’ faux-populism soon enough. You knew and I knew that they were going to raise tax rates on the wealthy, and never mind that it won’t actually work. And you knew and I knew that when Rahm Emanuel informed the world that you never let a good crisis go to waste, he meant it. So, it seems almost a duty to mock the people who are just now coming to the realization that they’re not only going to get beaten with clubs; they’re going to get beaten with the clubs that they themselves have paid for.

But you must resist: pleasant as ‘I told you so’ might be, it distracts from the long-term goal. Said goal being, of course, making it clear that if you have money, or would like to make money, it is against your class interests to vote for a Democrat. Including the ones that you think will back you up in a pinch (like the ones quoted in the article above): because… they won’t.

So. A soft word, and a pleasant smile. And if/when they complain that the GOP was/is just as bad, spread your hands and ask gently if they think that they’ll still be of that opinion six months from now.